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September 1, 2015

The Top Ten Tuesday meme is hosted by The Broke and The Bookish.
This week's topic is characters that we just didn't click with. I always kinda enjoy ranting about characters I didn't like, so I thought I'd join in this Top Ten Tuesday.

Plus, I just realized I haven't participated in a Top Ten Tuesday post since August 2014... how is that possible??! (Answer: the busy, stressful life of a grad student... but hey, that's over now! I'm done my program. Hopefully that means I can devote a little more time now to blogging.)

Anyway, without further ado (and in no particular order), here are the top ten twelve characters I didn't click with:

*Links are to my reviews of the books, so you can read in more detail about why a character didn't work for me.

1.) Anna from A Witch in Winter by Ruth Warburton— specifically, the character Anna becomes once she falls in insta-love with Seth. I liked Anna to begin with, but am no fan of insta-love and what it does to characters I had initially liked well enough.

2.) Dora from Secret Letters by Leah Scheier — she's annoyingly overconfident in her sleuthing abilities (without any reason that she should be, because actually, she kinda sucks at sleuthing) and sometimes when reading it I'd just be sitting there cringing and going, "No, Dora!!!" in my head.

3.) Victor and Eli from Vicious by V. E. Schwab— I think I'm one of the only people who didn't rave about Vicious. Sorry, but I just found the characters so dislikeable! I know that was the point, but partway through the book I was just hoping really hard for both of these guys to die at the end.

4.) Lucy from Graffiti Moon by Cath Crowley — this one is perhaps less a case of "not clicking" and more a case of a character being kinda boring and flat. Lucy was a pretty relatable character, but I just didn't really care about what happened to her.

5.) Sage from The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult — I really disliked Sage in the first part of this book. I'm not sure if that's what the author intended, but Sage was involved in an adulterous relationship and that will often turn me off a character. She did redeem herself somewhat towards the end, but overall I'm just not the biggest fan.

6.) London from Forgotten by Cat Patrick — I had issues with pretty much everything about this book, but the characterization was definitely one of them. London is a very flat, forgettable sort of character (I guess the book is aptly titled.) As I wrote in my review, "I'm not sure I could name one activity London enjoys doing in her spare
time if I had to (I'm not counting hanging out with her friend or
boyfriend)."

7.) Sandinista from The Sharp Time by Mary O'Connell — unlike some of the others on this list, it wasn't that Sandinista was so flat and boring that I couldn't click with her. It was the opposite problem — she was so "edgy" and cynical that I had trouble relating to her.

8.) Jacinda from Firelight by Sophie Jordan — she was one of these wishy-washy characters that keeps flip-flopping around, changing her mind every other page. And she loves to bring the angst.

9.) Sunshine from Sunshine by Robin McKinley — she was too sarcastic and jaded even for me, and I can appreciate sarcasm. Worse, she was self-absorbed and whiny, and the stream-of-consciousness writing style made following along with her thought processes even more tedious.

10.) Libby from Pilgrims Don't Wear Pink by Stephanie Kate Strohm — I liked some aspects of Libby's character, but she was so dense when it came to the two guys in her life. It was so obvious to the reader (in part, because this book relies heavily on tropes/stereotypes and is very predictable) which was the "good" guy and which was just a player. But Libby just blindly ignored what was staring her right in the face.

11.) Celaena from Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas — I know this series has a huge fanbase, but at least in the first book, Celaena and I weren't always on the same page. She comes off as sorta full of herself to start with, and pretty judgmental at times of others. We're told she's Adarlan's greatest assassin, but we really don't see it. Plus, she basically leads on two guys at the same time, and I always lose respect for characters who do that.

I'm reading VICIOUS right now, so I'm not going to read that tag, eep! Ooh, and I wanted to read GRAFFITI MOON, so this is so sad! Heh, and...^^;;;I still have to read THE STORYTELLER, too, but a different Picoult book made my list! I don't remember much about FORGOTTEN, either, so that is definitely a possibility for me as well! Heh, and I didn't continue FIRELIGHT after book one... and yes, SUNSHINE was my least favorite McKinley book! As for Celaena...well,the first book is VERY different in tone from the rest of the series. I wasn't super into the first book, but I love it now. Good choices!

I recently read the second book (well, actually I started kinda skimming partway through) — I would say that it is better overall than ToG and addresses some of the issues I had with the first one. It's still not one of my favourite fantasy series, and I'm not in any great hurry to run out and read the others. But I would say it's an improvement over the first.

I actually HATED Celaena in ToG, but then I started to absolutely love her! Actually, I almost DNFed ToG, but Crown of Midnight was phenomenal. Celaena's growth was fabulous! I haven't read any of the others on your list, and I am not exactly jumping to either ;) Except for Vicious, because I have heard good things for the most part. Fabulous list! Shannon @ It Starts At Midnight

About Me

danya

I have a Bachelor's degree in psychology, an addiction to chocolate and a love of reading, particularly YA novels. I recently got my Master's degree in speech-language pathology. And I'm Canadian!
You can contact me at tapestrybookblog(at)gmail.com.

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"An unhappy alternative is before you, Elizabeth. From this day you must be a stranger to one of your parents. -- Your mother will never see you again if you do not marry Mr. Collins, and I will never see you again if you do."— Jane Austen